Man Sentenced to Prison Term for Robbing, Beating Family

The last of three defendants convicted of attacking and robbing a Van Nuys family has been sentenced to 11 years and four months in prison.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Raymond Mireles on Thursday imposed the maximum sentence on Loushawn Boujay Irving, 20, of Long Beach.

Authorities said Irving and two other men, wearing ski masks and armed with shotguns, broke into the apartment of Ken and Yvette Kingsberry about 2 a.m. April 18, 1988.

The three men beat Ken Kingsberry, 27, with the butt of a shotgun, knocking out several front teeth. During the scuffle, the men kicked and pushed Kingsberry’s 22-year-old wife, who was nine months pregnant at the time, and threatened to take the couple’s year-old son, authorities said.

After ransacking the apartment, the men fled with $5,800 in cash and some jewelry. They were caught by police minutes later near the apartment complex in the 14500 block of Vose Street, authorities said.

One of the defendants told police that the robbery was in retaliation for Ken Kingsberry stealing his car a year earlier. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino said the victims did not know any of the men arrested in the incident.

“There was no provocation whatsoever” for the robbery, D’Agostino said. Rather, she said, the defendants somehow knew that the Kingsberrys had just sold a car and had money in the apartment.

Malkin Harris, 22, was sentenced earlier to 11 years and four months in state prison. Andre Hill, 21, was sentenced to 10 years and four months in prison in connection with the incident, authorities said.